Darrelle ‘DAZ’ Parker was born in Ripon, North Yorkshire. At 17 she moved to London to work in the West End Theatre on ‘TIME’ The Musical with Cliff Richard, at the same time as doing her A levels with a Drama Foundation Course in Doncaster, commuting by train every day to London.
After a year of commuting (and also winning Student of the Year award ) she moved to London permanently, worked in various West End Theatres, and gained a place at ‘Dartington College Of Arts’ where she learned to write and perform her own shows. After 4 years she obtained a 2:1 BA Hons in Theatre.
Daz then briefly returned to Yorkshire to work at the Harrogate Theatre during which time she landed a role at the London show ‘Alien War’ playing a gun busting US Marine in a live and interactive version of the ‘Aliens’ Film.
She then performed for two years as an actress in London in the play ‘Salome’ and while there joined a local swim club, this lead to an idea to combine sports with the arts and train for the British Stunt Register. This entailed training for more than 7 disciplines at a time, including brown belt in Martial Arts, Trampolining , Scuba Diving, Horse Riding, Gymnastics, Sky Diving, Swimming, Kick Boxing and Fencing. It took 4½ years to complete.
Her first major job was to do gymnastics and stunts in the music video ‘Gotta Tell You’ by Samantha Mumba. (see stunt page for clip)
Her first speaking part was in ‘The Da Vinci Code’ where she played a 17 Century French Woman, she can be seen in ‘National Treasure 2′, and most recently in films such as ‘The Awakening’, ‘The Invention of Hugo Cabret’, and ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’.
She has also worked with the London Eye Rescue Team, this involved training through the night practicing climbing up and around the eye into the pods and abseiling the public to safety.
She has also written her own one woman show that had a successful run at the Pleasance Theatre in London in 2003.
In that same year she gained a professional swim coaching certificate and currently coaches Triathletes of all levels. She still keeps a hand in Theatre though, most recently back in the West End on ‘Blood Brothers’ at the Phoenix Theatre.
In 2007 she completed her first Triathlon after winning a bike at a local gym and went to race 5 more times that year, completing her first XTERRA triathlon (off road triathlon).
In 2008 just a year later she won both the World Championships in Vancouver and 2009 XTERRA World Championships in Hawaii.
In 2010 decided to step up to Professional, and is currently placed 6th in Europe and 15th in the world at XTERRA racing.
She currently trains 15-20 hours a week and works as a freelance spinning instructor and swim coach, together with her Stunt career in Films and West End Theatre work.
